daybreak; sunrise
the sky when light first appears in the morning
the beginning of something
to begin to grow light after the night
to begin to develop, appear, or expand
to begin to become apparent (to)
First recorded before 1150; Middle English dawen (verb), Old English dagian, derivative of dæg day; akin to Old Norse daga, Middle Dutch, Middle Low German dagen, Old High German tagēn
The noun dawn refers to the first light of day, or the first time period, like the dawn of a new era, which occurs when a new president takes office. Not just the beginning of a day, the noun dawn can refer to any beginning, like the dawn of the Internet era. As a verb, dawn can mean "become light" or "become clear," like when it dawns on you that you left an important paper at home today. In that case, you can suddenly see what you did wrong, like at the dawn of a new day, when it is no longer dark and you can see, literally.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Columnist Dawn Gilbertson went all-in on a recent cruise, from 7 a.m. workouts to sushi-making lessons.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 6, 2026
“Gothic by Design: The Dawn of Architectural Draftsmanship,” now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is America’s first large-scale exhibition of Gothic architectural drawings.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 27, 2026
Dawn Kerr, 56, from Musselburgh, and her husband Andrew Searle, 62, died at their home in the hamlet of Les Pesquies, south-west France.
From BBC • May 6, 2026
Polk has spent decades studying this type of propulsion, contributing to earlier missions such as Dawn and Deep Space 1, which demonstrated electric propulsion beyond Earth orbit for the first time.
From Science Daily • May 6, 2026
The Dawn Truce, that beloved tradition, was abandoned because there was so little trust left between the animals.
From "The Wild Robot Protects" by Peter Brown
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
